With local government elections taking place in May, comments by Richard Mawrey QC have brought the issue of possible electoral fraud into sharp focus.

He has suggested that the availability of postal voting on demand leaves the electoral system wide open to fraud and is 'unviable'.  So why does he hold that view?

In Ali v Bashir [2013] EWHC 2572 (QB) he considered an election petition which challenged the outcome of the election which was won by the Liberal Democrat candidate by 16 votes.  He found that there was widespread false registration and false votes cast, both personally and by post.  He declared the election void and suggested that UK's electoral system is, 'shambolic'.

In his judgment Richard Mawrey is critical of politicians for their failure to reform the system.  He noted that little had changed following his determination of similar cases in Birmingham in 2004 and Slough in 2007. 

The Electoral Commission produced a report on electoral fraud in January 2014 which concluded that whilst there had been some high profile cases there was no evidence of widespread fraud.